Alright, standard disclaimer etc. etc.

hope you enjoy the chapter ;)

Mayoigo

Chapter 1

Rescue?

Naruto was jolted from unconsciousness as the man carrying him dropped him unceremoniously to the ground. He found he was lying on his back in the dark with a dozen sharp rocks jabbing into his back.

"Eh! What was that for!" he grumbled loudly, opening his eyes.

He was forcibly reminded of his imprisonment when on the man swatted him.

"Shut up kid!" he whispered fiercely.

"How you gonna make me!" Naruto yelled back, trying to nurse his burning jaw with his tied hands.

Naruto gasped as a kick caught him under the ribs and threw him back several feet. He felt his eyes water in pain, but he held it back.

'A ninja must not cry!' he shouted defiantly at himself.

Naruto curled up on the ground where he was and waited for more blows to rain down on him, but they never came. He opened a curious eye and saw that the man had gone off to get something to eat.

'Great! Now I can untie myself, hehe idiots.' Naruto thought.

Naruto busied himself trying to untie the bands that held him. He twisted and writhed, he even tried forcing chakra into his arms to burst the ropes, but nothing would work. In fact, the worst part about the ropes around his arms was the fact that they seemed to cut the flow of chakra to his feet and hands to a minimum. Nevertheless, Naruto wasted no time in hurling large gouts of his chakra at the barriers, and thoroughly tiring himself out.

"Give it up boy, you're not going to break those ropes, and you're just keeping us awake." A man called over to him.

Naruto grunted as his captor kicked him once again to reinforce his comrade's point. Then he too settled to the ground, preparing to sleep for the night. Naruto gave one last futile attempt at bursting the ropes before deciding that it would be better to bide his time and save his reserves rather than spend them all in a futile attempt to break out right now.

Naruto didn't get much sleep that night, his aching ribs and throbbing head made sure of that.

The darkness beyond his captors' campfire seemed to taunt him with the beckoning hands that were cast by nearby trees. The silvery sickle moon provided barely enough light to make itself seen, let alone break the shadow's embrace on the night. Thus, Naruto was left in to stare up at the stars, catching one of them falling occasionally.

Not too long after that, Naruto began to count the trees in the surrounding to pass time. It was when he had reached the one hundred and fifty-sixth tree that he realized something was wrong.

He swept his gaze over a "tree" which had been making it's way to different places around the clearing. He hadn't seen it move, but he was sure that it had, because after the fifth time counting it, he could tell that it was definitely the same tree, considering it wasn't back in the places he had counted it earlier. He quietly sat up and looked stared intently at the tree. It seemed to grow hazier when he looked directly at it.

'Genjutsu! It must be Sakura-chan' he cheered in his mind.

A decidedly un-Sakura-like head appeared around the side of the "tree" and examined the camp, counting numbers and taking note of the captive who was sitting up. Naruto waved both of his hands in a kind of salute and waited. Before long, the tree moved from it's current position. It sidled up to one of the sentries and a hand shot out of the tree, brushing against that man's voicebox. The man tried to yell out, but he found that the tenketsu around his throat had been sealed. He gargled incoherently and fell to the ground as the tree struck him in the chest, knocking him out cold. Naruto almost cheered, but caught himself and made a loud snoring noise to cover the sentries gargling.

Naruto felt a tug on the ropes holding his hands and he flopped to the ground in a heap of dust.

"Hey! What the heck was that for!" he yelled at his captor before he could control himself.

Half of the camp, about six men, sat up instantly, only to realize that the other half was either dying or unconscious, if not dead. They cried out as Naruto slapped his hands over his mouth.

'IDIOT' he thought at himself.

Naruto felt himself being yanked to his feet as his captor leaped out of his makeshift bed. The cold steel of a kunai pressed itself into his flesh, threatening to break skin.

"Don't come any closer, I'll kill him!" shouted the man.

Naruto felt his blood run cold. He had been in some bad situations in his life, but this was probably one of the worst, sitting in the middle of a camp of enemies with his chakra secured away from his hands and feet, while a kunai was pressed to his throat. It reminded him somewhat of when Gaara had him trapped in Sabaku Kyuu, luckily, he had been able to summon Gamunbunta before he could perform Sabaku Sousou. Unfortunately, there would be no timely summon to help him this time. He had himself and the ninja who were outside of the camp. Speaking of which…

A lone figure stepped into the firelight. He had the appearance of a Hyuuga, milky white eyes and all, as if his Byakugan were active. Strangely enough, there were no veins popping out around his eyes, so it could only be assumed that his natural eye color was a glazed white. His pupil less eyes didn't bother to focus on any enemy, instead, just stared straight ahead and sat there.

Finally, one of Naruto's captors threw a shuriken at the intruder. Naruto was afraid that the Hyuuga wouldn't dodge. He was proven right. The shuriken flew straight and true, then seemed to stop, quivering in the air for a second before falling to the ground. The Hyuuga raised his hands and formed seals.

Dragon, Ox, Tiger.

'Ninpou, Kyokujitsu!' (Rising sun)

Naruto blinked as nothing seemed to happen, then he realized that the men around him were screaming in pain, rubbing, or even clawing, at their eyes. A most of the men managed to bring their hands together and dispel the genjutsu that the Hyuuga had placed on them. They blinked briefly, and would have stood up, but a hail of senbon flew from the woods and buried themselves into weak points on the ninja. A few fell over, paralyzed outright, but the two remaining ninja stood no chance.

A Kunoichi descended from the trees and landed in the middle of the group, flashing through a group of seals.

Tiger, Dragon, Ram, Tiger

'Kon Hinote Nojutsu' (Soul Flames)

White fire erupted from the girl's hands and enveloped the two remaining ninja. They tried to scream, but as soon as they opened their mouths the flames drew the air out of their lungs. Finally, after a few seconds which seemed like an eternity to the ninja on the ground, they collapsed, breathing heavily, completely drained of chakra and strength.

Naruto looked at his rescuers with confusion. He had never seen these ninja before, and they weren't wearing headbands of any kind.

"What village are you from." He asked suspiciously.

"We aren't from a village." Replied the Hyuuga.

"Nukenin!" Naruto shouted in dismay, "I'll make you guys pay for betraying your village!"

The Hyuuga laughed. "All tied up like that? Anyway," he began, drawing a kunai, causing Naruto to wince, "We aren't missing nin, we're lost nin."

He punctuated his sentence with a swipe of his kunai. It sliced Naruto's bands apart easily, leaving him staring at the two ninja in the clearing.

"What the heck's a lost nin?" he asked.

In case you're wondering, the two jutsu of Gaara's I mentioned are Desert coffin and Desert Graveyard.